In a year when the rights of indigenous people have been under assault, from Standing Rock to the president’s Twitter feed, a largely unknown politician is pushing back by launching a campaign to become the country’s first Native American governor.

Paulette Jordan, a 37-year-old Idaho state representative and member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, is running as a progressive Democrat to try and become state governor.

“We’re blessed with land. We’re blessed with the goodness of what the land gives back to us, and what makes us prosperous and so I think we as leaders can enhance that — enhance the image of Idaho and all these ways,” Jordan said in an interview. “I want people to trust and believe that I can make this difference.”

Paulette Jordan is a really thoughtful, smart, wonderful woman who is such a great role model for our young women. If I was a resident of Idaho she would definitely have my vote!

When I used to live there, our Native women’s org on campus invited her to come speak at a panel on ending violence against Native women, and she agreed without hesitation. Even though our campus was full of racists and very few people came to our event, she still stayed and gave a really nice speech on supporting young Native women’s leadership, and gave us a lot of encouragement. She even went to a Martha Redbone (Black-Cherokee blues artist!) concert with us afterwards. It meant so much to us that she took the time to support us and what we were trying to do. Paulette is a genuine leader with a good heart, who would do good things not just for her Native constituents, but for her entire state (and the country!).

men who drive fucking gigantic shiny pickups that they obviously just have as ego-boosters who fucking tailgate you on an empty stretch of freeway at night and they’ve replaced their headlights with fucking military-grade 500 proton scatter billion lumen searchlights that they fucking utterly blind you with while honking for you to get out of your lane because they just desperately have to go a full 40 miles over the speed limit or their dick will just jump clean off their balls and hurl itself out their window in shame